Mentioning past poor performance in Personal Statement: Yea or Nay?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>So I am writing my PS for this non-thesis masters IE program and am wondering if I should mention reasons for poor performance in the Personal Statement or just leave it out. My situation is a bit different in that:</p>

<p>First two years of Bachelors in Psychology (2003-2005): 4.0</p>

<p>Transferred to a better school, then had a long drawn out family crisis in which I continually missed a lot of class from traveling home (My fault for trying to push through it instead of getting help or taking some time off though, not whining).</p>

<p>Second (last) half of Bachelors in Psych (2005-2007): 2.58 </p>

<p>Graduated. Worked for about 4 years, and took a couple classes on and off (Made A's in each) while trying to figure out what I wanted to do.</p>

<p>Went back to get BS in Industrial Engineering (Fall 2011-Present). Have taken 56 credits since with a 4.0.</p>

<p>Cumulative Gpa is a 3.44 </p>

<p>Have 3 good LOR's. One is my past DiffEq professor who has always encouraged me to pursue the MS, another I did research for and knows my abilities well, and the third is an IE professor that I made an A+ in his class and he is on the admissions committee (he let me know of this opportunity and offered to write the letter).</p>

<p>Just wondering what some opinions are. Would you touch on it? </p>

<p>Thanks for your opinions!</p>

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<p>In your case I would not mention it. It’s non-thesis, your weak period was years ago… I would not waste the space.</p>

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<p>Speaking from personal experience, a school that would use old bad grades against you given your new shiny grades admissions wouldn’t care about your personal statement anyway.</p>

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<p>Just as an update. I followed the advice and did not include it in my SOP, and today I got the email that I was accepted!</p>

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<p>Congratulations!</p>

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<p>SO Chuck you’re gonna be doing your master’s at NC State?</p>

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<p>Congratulations!</p>

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<p>Thanks everybody!</p>

<p>@ Bounce:
Yep, I’m doing the MIE at NC State.</p>

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<p>Nullified thread, but I’ll add to anybody who is reading this and is wondering the same thing as the OP: I wouldn’t even mention a previous degree or academic experience in a grad school app if it isn’t relevant to the thing you’re applying to. It’s kind of like talking about high school. The only exception I guess is because you HAVE to include that transcript because it has certain GECs, but usually they don’t care about your GEC grades, just the ones pertinent to the program.</p>

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<p>Well Congrats buddy!!! Who knows, maybe we’ll cross paths.</p>